China - Provincial. SIKANG: Republic, AE 100 cash, year 19 (1930), Y-466a, CL-SCMG.55, PCGS graded VF25. Sikang (Xikang) was a province of the Republic of China comprising most of the Kham region of traditional Tibet, where the Khampa, a subgroup of the Tibetan people, live. The eastern part of the province was inhabited by a number of different ethnic groups, such as Han Chinese, Yi, Qiang people and Tibetan, while the western part of the province was inhabited by Tibetans. Sikang, then known as Chuanbian, was a special administrative region of the Republic of China until 1939, when it became an official province. The provincial capital was Kangding from 1939 to 1951 and Yaan from 1951 to 1955. In 1950, following the defeat of the Kuomintang by the Communists in the Chinese Civil War, Sikang was split along the Yangtze into Sikang to the east and a separate Chamdo Territory to the west. Chamdo was merged into Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965. The rest of Sikang was merged into Sichuan in 1955.
